Reading Recap: September, October, November 2023

 It's been busy and crazy and I got behind logging my reading on here. So here's a bit of a catch up post! 

SEPTEMBER

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: A sad story about a very dysfunctional family and how they deal with the death of their daughter, which we find out about in the beginning and then learn what led up to it. It was page-turny for me but I still found the "being a mom is terrible" narrative to be frustrating. I'd love to read a book about a happy mom sometime. I gave it three stars on Goodreads.

Not If I Date You First by Krysti Meyer: A cute YA romcom that I ended up with when the author gave out the link on Instagram. The premise: what happens when a top celebrity and a rising paparazzo fall in love? They have run ins, but the dude's people decide that the run  ins are helping his career, so they encourage it... and she needs the run ins to get the paparazzi job she wants. So yeah, fake boyfriend trope, which is always fun! I gave it three stars on Goodreads.

Just Won't Spring for the Boy Band Star by Sasha Hart: This is a book I bought from the author at the writing conference back in May. Part of a companion series, this one is about our girl who is an up and coming chef and ends up being hired as the personal chef for a celebrity boy band star... and one she had a tiff with over on Twitter. So she has to hide her identity and then worries what to do when they start having feelings for each other. I

Flour Power: The Practice and Pursuit of Baking Sourdough Bread by Tara Jensen: As part of my quest to learn how to do sourdough stuff, I got this really awesome book from the library. I didn't read it cover to cover (the whole last half is recipes) but I did read A LOT of the learning stuff up front. But it's still a mystery. I guess I need to continue my research. I gave this one four stars on Goodreads.

OCTOBER

I read nothing in October, but I TRIED to read a lot of things and nothing would stick. See my video about those struggles here.

NOVEMBER

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas: Wow! I finally know what everyone is talking about! Not sure it totally lived up to the hype, but yeah. It's a pretty intense fantasy (romantasy? Isn't that the new buzz word??) where the world of our human girl clashes with the world of our fairy lord boy. (Man? I guess this is adult so they are older, though our girl is still only 19. And he's like thousands of years old, so... man I guess, lol.) Anyway, she gets messed up in all the craziness of what's going on in the fairy world and has to help to solve it all. I am not sure if I'll continue on to the next book, but probably. Especially since I'm going to read more banned and challenged books this year and I think the 2nd book of this series is on a lot of lists! I gave this one four stars even though it was a slow start. The ending is quite...intense.

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams: A cute story about a sad lonely girl working at a small local library and an sad lonely older man dealing with the death of his wife. She finds a reading list... he needs something to read... and they start going through the books and realize how much they can relate them to the struggles they are both facing. I enjoyed reading about what they thoughts about the books on the list, but I didn't feel as emotional attached as I wanted to be. I gave this one 3 stars on Goodreads.

And now November is over and on to December! I have seven books to read to reach my Goodreads goal of 50 books this year. Sigh. I was doing so well until everything got derailed in October. I'm thinking of reading some small Christmas books from my Christmas book basket. Maybe that will work? I also need to read the book for book club (The Christmas Murder Game) and I fear that's going to take me all month since I predict it will not grab my attention well. Wish me luck!